Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola Review - Guest Post

Matru ki Bijlee Ka Mandola is passable

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola is a political satire with a hint of humour. It deals with a serious issue of Industrialisation on farmer's land and involvement of politicians into the matter. It is not Vishal Bhardwaj's best work, but still watchable. 

Story

Set in a village in Haryana, the movie revolves around Harry Mandola (Pankaj Kapur), a wealthy alcoholic industrialist, his daughter Bijlee (Anushka Sharma) and Matru (Imran Khan). Mr Mandola dreams of selling his agricultural land for industrialisation and development without considering the villagers' plight. But here comes the twist, Mandola, after drinking alcohol, is a different man altogether. He wants to help the villagers save their land. Bijlee is all set to marry Baadal (Arya Babbar). Baadal is a son of powerful politician Chaudhari Devi, played by Shabana Azmi. Chaudhari Devi has a masterplan behind the alliance of Baadal and Bijlee.

Direction and Technical Aspects

Vishal Bhardwaj is one of the talented storytellers of Bollywood. No two opinions on his excellent sense of cinema. With Matru... he manages to keep you glued till the conclusion. He takes you to a fun-cum-thoughtful ride of industrialisation in India keeping in mind the rustic flavour of villages. He communicates one of the persistent and prevailing issues of the country with a hint of humour. First half of the movie is bit slow and loosely crafted, but full of intelligent humour. Second tackles the issue, politics with some exceptional performances. Cinematography looks fresh and real. Length of the movie is another problem. 10-15 minutes of editing is required. Dialogues are penned well. A few words like Paincho and Teri Maa Ka Paapad may appear offensive. Some characters like blind boy, Gulabi Bhains, Mao – are hilarious.

Music

Music is given by Vishal Bhardwaj himself. He mixes folk and western rhythms well and brings out unconventional musical album. Khamakha is hummable. Lyrics are penned by Vishal's favourite Gulzar. He penned some meaningful songs keeping the issue in mind.

Acting

Star of the show is Pankaj Kapur. He enacts Mandola with excellence and ease. He performs a dual-personality character with gusto. Imran Khan deserves claps for playing something that is out-of-his-comfort zone. For sure, he breaks his chocolate image with this movie. He portrays a Haryanvi in the movie and delivers exceptional performance. Anushka Sharma, as usual, gets into the skin of the character and delivers hard-hitting performance. Shabana Azmi is terrific. Arya Babbar is watchable. He handles some of the sequences well. 

Sanjeev Kumar, an avid movie buff, is the part of Movieplus.com - a movie portal in India that provides Latest Bollywood Movie Reviews as well as Hollywood Movie reviews, Celebrity news, latest and upcoming movie news and much more.